Browsing by Author "Irl, Severin D. H."
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- Scientists’ Warning - The Outstanding Biodiversity of Islands is in PerilPublication . Fernández-Palacios, José María; Kreft, Holger; Irl, Severin D. H.; Norder, Sietze J.; Ah-Peng, Claudine; Borges, Paulo A. V.; Burns, Kevin C.; Nascimento, Lea de; Meyer, Jean-Yves; Montes, Elba; Drake, Donald R.Despite islands contributing only 6.7% of land surface area, they harbor ~20% of the Earth’s biodiversity, but unfortunately also ~50% of the threatened species and 75% of the known extinctions since the European expansion around the globe. Due to their geological and geographic history and characteristics, islands act simultaneously as cradles of evolutionary diversity and museums of formerly widespread lineages—elements that permit islands to achieve an outstanding endemicity. Nevertheless, the majority of these endemic species are inherently vulnerable due to genetic and demographic factors linked with the way islands are colonized. Here, we stress the great variation of islands in their physical geography (area, isolation, altitude, latitude) and history (age, human colonization, human density). We provide examples of some of the most species rich and iconic insular radiations. Next, we analyze the natural vulnerability of the insular biota, linked to genetic and demographic factors as a result of founder events as well as the typically small population sizes of many island species. We note that, whereas evolution toward island syndromes (including size shifts, derived insular woodiness, altered dispersal ability, loss of defense traits, reduction in clutch size) might have improved the ability of species to thrive under natural conditions on islands, it has simultaneously made island biota disproportionately vulnerable to anthropogenic pressures such as habitat loss, overexploitation, invasive species, and climate change. This has led to the documented extinction of at least 800 insular species in the past 500 years, in addition to the many that had already gone extinct following the arrival of first human colonists on islands in prehistoric times. Finally, we summarize current scientific knowledge on the ongoing biodiversity loss on islands worldwide and express our serious concern that the current trajectory will continue to decimate the unique and irreplaceable natural heritage of the world’s islands. We conclude that drastic actions are urgently needed to bend the curve of the alarming rates of island biodiversity loss.
- Snapshot isolation and isolation history challenge the analogy between mountains and islands used to understand endemismPublication . Flantua, Suzette G. A.; Payne, Davnah; Borregaard, Michael K.; Beierkuhnlein, Carl; Steinbauer, Manuel J.; Dullinger, Stefan; Essl, Franz; Irl, Severin D. H.; Kienle, David; Kreft, Holger; Lenzner, Bernd; Norder, Sietze; Rijsdijk, Kenneth F.; Rumpf, Sabine B.; Weigelt, Patrick; Field, RichardAIM: Mountains and islands are both well known for their high endemism. To explain this similarity, parallels have been drawn between the insularity of "true islands" (land surrounded by water) and the isolation of habitats within mountains (so-called "mountain islands"). However, parallels rarely go much beyond the observation that mountaintops are isolated from one another, as are true islands. Here, we challenge the analogy between mountains and true islands by re-evaluating the literature, focusing on isolation (the prime mechanism underlying species endemism by restricting gene flow) from a dynamic perspective over space and time. FRAMEWORK: We base our conceptualization of "isolation" on the arguments that no biological system is completely isolated; instead, isolation has multiple spatial and temporal dimensions relating to biological and environmental processes. We distinguish four key dimensions of isolation: (a) environmental difference from surroundings; (b) geographical distance to equivalent environment [points (a) and (b) are combined as "snapshot isolation"]; (c) continuity of isolation in space and time; and (d) total time over which isolation has been present [points (c) and (d) are combined as "isolation history"]. We evaluate the importance of each dimension in different types of mountains and true islands, demonstrating that substantial differences exist in the nature of isolation between and within each type. In particular, different types differ in their initial isolation and in the dynamic trajectories they follow, with distinct phases of varying isolation that interact with species traits over time to form present-day patterns of endemism. CONCLUSIONS: Our spatio-temporal definition of isolation suggests that the analogy between true islands and mountain islands masks important variation of isolation over long time-scales. Our understanding of endemism in isolated systems can be greatly enriched if the dynamic spatio-temporal dimensions of isolation enter models as explanatory variables and if these models account for the trajectories of the history of a system.
- Topography-driven isolation, speciation and a global increase of endemism with elevationPublication . Steinbauer, Manuel J.; Field, Richard; Grytnes, John-Arvid; Trigas, Panayiotis; Ah-Peng, Claudine; Attorre, Fabio; Birks, H. John B.; Borges, Paulo A. V.; Cardoso, Pedro; Chou, Chang-Hung; De Sanctis, Michele; Sequeira, Miguel M.; Duarte, Maria C.; Elias, Rui B.; Fernández-Palacios, José María; Gabriel, Rosalina; Gereau, Roy E.; Gillespie, Rosemary G.; Greimler, Josef; Harter, David E. V.; Huang, Tsurng-Juhn; Irl, Severin D. H.; Jeanmonod, Daniel; Jentsch, Anke; Jump, Alistair S.; Kueffer, Christoph; Nogué, Sandra; Otto, Rüdiger; Price, Jonathan; Romeiras, Maria M.; Strasberg, Dominique; Stuessy, Tod; Svenning, Jens-Christian; Vetaas, Ole R.; Beierkuhnlein, CarlAIM: Higher-elevation areas on islands and continental mountains tend to be separated by longer distances, predicting higher endemism at higher elevations; our study is the first to test the generality of the predicted pattern. We also compare it empirically with contrasting expectations from hypotheses invoking higher speciation with area, temperature and species richness. Location Thirty-two insular and 18 continental elevational gradients from around the world. Methods We compiled entire floras with elevation-specific occurrence information, and calculated the proportion of native species that are endemic (‘percent endemism’) in 100-m bands, for each of the 50 elevational gradients. Using generalized linear models, we tested the relationships between percent endemism and elevation, isolation, temperature, area and species richness. RESULTS: Percent endemism consistently increased monotonically with elevation, globally. This was independent of richness–elevation relationships, which had varying shapes but decreased with elevation at high elevations. The endemism–elevation relationships were consistent with isolation-related predictions, but inconsistent with hypotheses related to area, richness and temperature. Main conclusions Higher per-species speciation rates caused by increasing isolation with elevation are the most plausible and parsimonious explanation for the globally consistent pattern of higher endemism at higher elevations that we identify. We suggest that topography-driven isolation increases speciation rates in mountainous areas, across all elevations and increasingly towards the equator. If so, it represents a mechanism that may contribute to generating latitudinal diversity gradients in a way that is consistent with both present-day and palaeontological evidence.